i can't say the words out loud (so in a rhyme i wrote you down)
by coffee-not-decaf
Summary: "Written me into your story yet?"


"Written me into your story yet?"

Arthur always greeted him like this when Merlin was bent down, scribbling madly in his tattered and endlessly cluttered notebook, racing at the speed of a thousand war horses on their way to battle in order to get his idea out of his mind and onto paper fast enough, before he forgot it. Arthur thought he was clever when he said this, for his eyes danced with mirth and his smile was mocking.

Then again, Arthur's smile was usually mocking, so Merlin didn't pay much interest

He brushed him off, not even looking up from his half-mad notes, hardly understandable and not even slightly legible to any eye but his own. Merlin determinedly did not reply to the question, and Arthur had grown accustomed to never gaining a response.

Merlin knew that he could never answer that question, at least not without embarrassing himself so thoroughly and completely that he could never show his face to his closest friend again.

The truth of the matter was, that even though Arthur had read his way through many of Merlin's works, the good, the bad, the halfway almost decent, and the absolutely horrendous, he never noticed those little spots, or rather, huge and monstrous entities, that he came into play in.

Arthur was the king in the storybook, the golden-haired hero in the mythic tale, the popular jock in the high school rom-com, the imprisoned captive in the pirate's voyage. He was the merman, the princess in the tower, the prime minister, the local police officer, and everything in between – pieces of Arthur littered each of Merlin's stories like the trash littered the streets; in all characters, settings, and dialogue, Arthur was present.

Arthur was Merlin's inspiration, his muse in every possible way. And yet he stood there, teasing and jesting with Merlin about "When are you going to name a character after me? C'mon, M, you know you want to. I have a brilliant name. What's a better name for a dashing hero than Arthur?"

There wasn't one, really. But Arthur was already the hero. He was also the sidekick, the best friend, the father, the mentor, the love interest, and the villain. Arthur was everywhere.

Still, Merlin would reply with a scathing "Never. You're too boring, A. All posh and uppity. No one wants to read a story about a future accountant with OCD, a pet cat, and a penchant for hitting his poor best friend when he's in a bad mood."

"Bastard," Arthur would laugh and shove him in the chest, and they would grin at each other in the way that they always did, those secret smiles that existed just between them, and Merlin would return to his notebook and Arthur was bother him incessantly about what he was writing for a while and then, getting bored with Merlin's lack of responsiveness, would depart with the promise of bringing takeaway back to their flat later.

And Merlin would write about Arthur.

He never stopped writing about Arthur.

Because if anyone Merlin knew deserved to be immortalized through the act of writing, Arthur was the clear candidate. Merlin was going to make sure Arthur lived forever, even if it was in nothing but a stream of badly written stories by a man who had never attempted to publish a single one of them yet. Arthur would live in his pages for the rest of time.

Merlin wouldn't say a word to him about the subject, though. There was nothing worse than unrequited love, especially for your very best friend, and Merlin had the worst case of it. Arthur was his everything, but he wasn't Arthur's. Writing it down, though, that made the pain of loving him bearable. It made it easier to cope, knowing that the Arthur he wrote down might love him, even if the true one, the real one, did not.

The first time Merlin wrote himself into a story, it was theirs.

_We met in primary school. We hated each other on first sight._

_When we were teenagers, we realized that it was more fun to hate the world instead of hate each other. Much less lonely that way, having someone around who understands you._

_We became the closest friends you'd ever seen. Never one without the other. There's nothing better than when two people just click, and a bond forms almost like magic._

_When we were sixteen, my little brother Mordred asked us "Are you two in love?" _

_He blushed crimson and I laughed him off, because I assumed he was embarrassed. It got me thinking, though. Were we? We should be, I thought. We should be._

_I get lonely when he's not here._

_It was like destiny, us meeting. My life wouldn't be the same without him. _

_He doesn't know that everything I write is for him. He is every single one of my characters, and I write him into every single story I create. He's never noticed._

_So, Arthur. Are we in love?_

Arthur wasn't supposed to have read it. At least not until Merlin was ready to give it to him, which would have been a few hundred years past never.

But because Arthur was a pushy bastard who had no personal boundaries, when Merlin got home from uni classes one day, Arthur was leaning against the couch, reading intently, face nearly pressed up against the crumpled yellow pages that Merlin recognized on sight.

"What the hell are you doing?" Merlin hissed, his bag thudding to the ground as every inch of his body yelled that this could not be reality, that this _wasn't happening oh please god don't be happening_. He stormed across the room and desperately and clumsily attempted to grab the papers out of Arthur's hands.

Arthur ducked out of his reach, and papers still in front of his eyes, crossed the room. Turning back to Merlin with a bewildered expression, he said "Is – is this serious? Is this actually, legitimately, in all seriousness?"

"What, no, of course not," Merlin laughed nervously, not meeting Arthur's eyes as he wished fervently that lightning would strike him and put him out of this misery. "That would be ridiculous. I just thought how we met would make a good love story, you know? Pining. Pining is always a great plot to go on. Everyone can relate to unrequited love. Easy to root for the hero."

"You're a horrible liar," Arthur stepped toward Merlin with wide eyes and a half smile, and Merlin didn't even dare to let himself hope, even going so far as flinching backward. Arthur was persistent, though, backing Merlin against the edge of their old, creaking blue couch. It was only when they were in that close a proximity that Merlin could tell that Arthur's hands, clutching the papers like a lifeline, were shaking erratically. "You – you're in love with me."

"Am not," Merlin said automatically. "You're delusional, A. Absolutely, completely –"

And somehow, someway, although Merlin wasn't exactly sure how, Arthur was kissing him, manuscript falling to the ground, papers flying out from everywhere. Merlin took a second to be concerned for his work, but then focused in on the _Arthur was kissing him _as that was clearly the important issue here. It took him a few moments to respond properly, especially what with one of Arthur's arms curled around his waist and the other tangled in his hair, but Merlin found a way to start kissing back, moving his fingers to the small of Arthur's back and pulling him in closer.

"Yes, yes," Arthur gasped the moment they broke apart, still with a fistful of Merlin's hair in his hand. "Yes, we're in love. God, Merlin, we're in love, we really are!"

They were laughing now, Arthur open-mouth guffaws and Merlin half retching for air and half giggling uncontrollably as he held Arthur tighter.

"You – you couldn't have told me," Merlin managed to get out. "Before? Before now? I've been in love with you practically since we were eleven and I decided you weren't the worst person I'd ever met. It took us ten years to figure it out?"

"And only because you're a sap who had to write it all down," Arthur leaned forward to press a kiss onto the side of Merlin's mouth, and this was happening, this was really, really happening. Or else Merlin was having a really great, hyper realistic dream. Waking up from this would be an extreme letdown. "Am I really in your stories?"

"Every single one," Merlin promised.


End file.
